The speculation is that Nokia will use a next-generation Atom chip in some kind of device, possibly even a mobile phone. And as Bloomberg's story says:

"Even if they get just a piece of Nokia's business, it's a big deal," said Will Strauss, a Cave Creek, Arizona-based analyst for research firm Forward Concepts. "Nokia is still the biggest cell-phone maker in the world."

There are roughly a billion Nokia mobile phones in use round the world, and even where it's weakest -- in smart phones -- it still shipped 61 million units last year for a market share of 43.7%, according to Gartner. The iPhone's market share was 8.2%.

Power-efficient ARM-based chip designs dominate the smart phone market, and the presumption has been that ARM can also invade the mobile device and netbook markets (though this idea failed before, even when Microsoft tried it a decade ago).

Intel, of course, sold off its ARM-base XScale product line to focus on Atom, which is x86 and therefore Windows-compatible. (See my Sean Maloney interview, Intel drives into ARMy territory.)

Getting Nokia to use Atom chips would therefore be a huge psychological win for Intel. If the company can get Atom into a popular phone, rather than a mini-tablet like the Nokia 880, it could also be very profitable.

Whether the Atom can really compete in providing decent battery life remains to be seen, because even some ARM-based smart phones struggle in this area -- including the iPhone.

Another issue is Nokia's choice of operating system. Its smart phones run Symbian, but Atom might tempt it to try something else, possibly as a twin OS system. A Nokia E90 Communicator that also included Windows XP might have some (limited) appeal.